Put Your Action Where Your Mind Is

Reading time: 6 minutes
Summary: This post is about the things we know are good for our mental health, but that we don't always make an effort to do; it can hopefully encourage you to find ways to do the things that you know are helpful for you. 

Last week I read Brené Brown's "The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are. Your Guide to a Wholehearted Life." I admit I cringed when I saw the cheesy cover combined with the cheesy title, BUT the author is Brené Brown, and she has gained both my respect and my interest by her overall approach to mental health. Brené and I seem to share a task-oriented stubborn determination to plough through life, achieving whatever strikes our fancy (and ideally doing so faster and better than everyone else. '...Life is a competitive race, right?' No? Just me..? Ok.) You can get a sense of her research on shame, courage, vulnerability, and wholehearted living, as well as her approach to mental health more generally, by watching her tedtalk. (It's one of my favourites.)

There are many parts of Brené's book which I found striking and helpful, but I'm going to summarize just a few of them here. I should note that, while I've picked up on these from reading her book, there are so many other influences in my life lately that make me hone in on these particular things. Other big influences have been the PhD I'm doing at the University of Cambridge with a supervisor who values and encourages deep learning, attending meditation retreats with Jaya Ashmore, reading poetry (I really love the works of Mary Oliver, Rainer Maria Rilke, Nayyirah Waheed, William Stafford, and Wendell Berry), reading books or listening to podcasts by theologians/philosophers/individuals who grapple with questions of faith and what it means to be human (Paul Knitter, Swami Prabhavananda, Ram Dass, Pema Chödrön, and The Liturgists podcast), as well as having an abundance of conversations with dear friends and colleagues. I'm so grateful for each of these influences. 

Alright, back to some insights gleaned from reading Brené Brown's book. 

1. If we pay attention to our bodies, we can note physical symptoms of anxiety, stress, freak-outs, etc. Recognizing the physical symptoms can "cue us" to respond healthily. 
If you are like me, you might not 'listen to your body' all that often. (This is coming from the girl who rarely takes sick days, who has played basketball with a broken wrist & jumped on a trampoline with a broken ankle---to name a few.) Let's say, for example, you open up an email from someone that says something critical of you, or that for another reason you find troublesome. If you were to notice that your palms are sweating, or that you have a headache, or that your chest feels tight, or that you've just clenched all the muscles in your neck, it might be a good moment to pause, take a deep breath (or a nap) or even wait an entire day before replying. This can be true on much bigger scales, as well.

2. "If we want to live a wholehearted life, we have to become intentional about cultivating sleep and play, and about letting go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth."
I find that this is especially true of graduate students or early career individuals, or anyone who is still trying to "prove themselves." Sometimes we don't even realize it, but phrases like "I was at the library 12 hours yesterday", or even just feeling exhausted and taking that as indicative of working hard---AND SOMEHOW FEELING PROUD ABOUT IT!?!?!---is very very damaging to our mental (and physical) health! Research by Lynne Twist also shows that we increasingly feel like we have to be busy and productive in order to be good, admirable people. That's kind of messed up.. Sleep and play are both important. Make time for them.

3. There is not only a big difference between the things we achieve and the things that make us joyful but the things that we are trying to achieve do not always allow for the things that make us joyful.
Brown suggests to make a list of the things you are doing when you feel joyful, and to place that side by side with a list of things that you are actively and intentionally trying to achieve. Do they line up? Do the things on the latter list actually allow for / encourage the things on the former? I tried it, and on the "achievement" list I had things like "publish a peer reviewed article", "get a tenure track teaching job." On the "joyful" list I had things like "garden," "play music with friends," "cook and eat good food." Some of the desired achievements did allow space for the things that make me joyful, but many did not---and this certainly made me wonder whether I have my priories straight! (Consider asking yourself the question: 'Why am I spending all this time and energy trying to achieve goals that do not give me nearly as as much joy as the things that I already have within my grasp?' I'm certain there are ways to intentionally focus more on the things that give us joy...)

This leads us to the next and last one:
4. There is a difference between theoretically agreeing with something, and acting upon it. So often, we become theoretical advocates for things that improve mental health, but we rarely follow through ourselves.
Reflecting upon this made me come up with the phrase "put your action where your mind is" (from 'put your money where your mouth is'). There are so many things that I advocate for and/or theoretically agree are valuable, but it is rare for me to prioritize them into my busy schedule. I love lists, so of course I made a list of these, too. For me, they included: spiritual practice, community and relationships, reading, exercise, tidiness, deep rest and relaxation, intentional creativity (art, music, writing), being outside. But, when I look at how I spend my time, it is mostly: PhD reading/writing, other academic side projects, applying for future academic projects, scarfing down food, going to the gym simply to check off 'exercise' from my to do list, and Netflix. (Of course, I sometimes do make some time for the other things, but they are rarely a priority. I'm not proud of it, but if I feel short on time, it is always the "extra mental health stuff" that is the first to get cut from my daily rhythm.) 

I wonder what might life look like if we didn't view those 'good for mental health things' as extras, that could be fit in if and when we finished all the 'real' stuff? What if, instead, we were to recognize them as important pillars for the rest of life? For one, I suspect that our self-worth, our relationships with others, and even our work ethic/creativity output would all improve...

Grad School + Beyond:

I'm 3 years into my PhD and I just read the statistic: "only three or four in every hundred PhD students in the United Kingdom will land a permanent staff position at a university."
The stat showed up in this article in Nature's International Weekly Journal of Science, which is written with regard to the sciences, but I have my severe doubts that the humanities are any better off: the reality is that myself and most graduate students I know will be hard-pressed to get a permanent contract with a university even after we've all become "Doctor ____."
This should cause us to pause and reflect on why we're doing these degrees in the first place.
To me, graduate studies---isolated yet competitive work culture, high-stress, long hours, low-pay, and seemingly with no promise of an academic job that most people assume they will fall into---is really only worth it if you (a) can work with the flexible learning environment it allows (/forces upon) you; and (b) can stay happy/healthy while doing it.
An alarmingly high number of students struggle to stay happy and healthy + link this struggle to their studies/work environment. Some studies like this one in Science have shown that 1 in 3 graduate students struggle with mental health on account of their workload and work environment (and, based on my friend/colleague circle, I'd speculate it's actually significantly higher than 33%.)
I assume I will be happy to have done my PhD even if I wind up in a career totally outside of academia where my PhD specifics aren't really needed (/useful?) (--but then again, I only pursued graduate studies in the first place because it provided a debt-free, albeit financially meagre, way to do full-time learning on topics that interest me.) I truly hope that other grad students feel similarly, and that they're studying their various research topics primarily because they enjoy the process of studying. (At least, I pity those of you who are wading through grad school, not enjoying it at all, but are under the [false?] hope that you will end up in a TT professorship job.)
So, if this is indeed true that the process itself ought to be enjoyable, it is most important that we focus on enjoying the actual process at hand.
A few things come to mind in this regard. I'm writing them out somewhat with the hope that I will force myself to adopt them for myself...(that is, they are pieces of advice which are thus far hypocritical due to not following them myself...)

1. Abandon the 'publish or perish' paradigm. 2. Stop stressing that I haven't read enough theories, or don't know as much of the literature as xyz. 3. Focus on learning for the sake of improving my knowledge of a topic that interests/intrigues me---not for appearing smart, not for impressing my supervisor, etc. 4. Don't try to make a perfect + brilliant thesis/paper/etc. That benchmark is unrealistic and can be somewhat uninspiring. Try to write something that is interesting, or challenging, or inspiring, or beautiful, ...and coherent. It doesn't have to incorporate everything you've learned and it doesn't have to be applauded by the academe. 5. (I would like your tips/feedback!) And, now, a poem...which I find challenging, inspiring, beautiful, and coherent.

"Every day I see or hear something that more or less

kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle

in the haystack of light. It was what I was born for - to look, to listen, to lose myself inside this soft world - to instruct myself over and over in joy, and acclamation."

~ Mary Oliver (USA, 1935-), from “Mindful,” Why I Wake Early

Recognising and Combating Gender Bias in the Workplace

So, this research summarises the ways that gender-bias is alive and well in academia. In other words: it was my disheartening read of the day.

In sum, here are some of ways that female-ness affects individuals in academia (according to what seems like some pretty well-grounded research.)

...I'll let you guess whether these elements are in favour of being female, or not.!

Some Affects of Gender-Bias in Academia

1. The qualities/traits that supervisors draw attention to in reference letters.
2. The perceived hire-ability for academic jobs
3. What students expect/ask of their professors
4. The criteria by which students evaluate professors in formal and informal evaluations
5. The likelihood that other scholars will choose to cite our work
6. The way other colleagues will interact with us when it comes to things like supervisons, staff meetings, etc.
7. The pay received for same or similiar jobs 

8. (There are more...)

Also, this kind of gender bias is not limited to academia, but studies show it is also prominent in politics and the workplace more generally. 

What causes this kind of discrimination?

Well, unfortunately there are some people who are just jerks. These jerks dislike or distrust certain individuals or groups of individuals and don't want to offer them equal opportunities...but I assume a lot of these inequalities are the result of unconscious bias (click here for definition/explanation) being at work in good and well-meaning people.


I think that is worth repeating.

A lot of these inequalities are the result of unconscious bias
at work in good and well-meaning people.

Yassmin Abdel-Magied did a Ted-Talk which poignantly revealed the reality of gender bias. Give it a listen by clicking here. It might surprise you. 

My intent is not to come off as preachy or hypocritical. Truth be told, I hold unconscious bias, too---we all do. In fact, to my shame and dislike, I hold unconscious [negative] bias even when it comes to the capabilities of females in academia; when I'm reading a particularly noteworthy text I assume its author to be male. Catching myself at this simultaneously humbles, irritates, and disheartens me. (I caught myself at this just yesterday.)

In fact, studies show that we can even hold unconscious biases against ourselves which affect our performance. Check out Shen Zhang's study on mathematics tests, which suggests that women often underperform when they are being identified as women. A summary of it can be found on Smithsonian. 

Anyway, every cloud has its silver lining and every shitty statistic has the potential to promote change. (...Right?)

Image from Hyperbole and a Half's blogpost on depression

Some Avenues for Positive Change

1. We ALL need to think a bit more carefully and thoroughly at the way we interpret things and individuals. The chance of us holding onto an unconscious bias is extremely likely, but GOOD NEWS, if you dig around your unconscious with a bit of intentionality, you will unearth some shitty stuff! (Keep reading...the good news will come, I promise...) And then you find a way to scrape it away or toss it out! TOSS.IT.OUT!

2. Brainstorm some concrete ways that you can avoid or counter the tendencies of unconscious bias. Are you writing a reference letter for a female student? Make sure you speak to the skills asked for in the job rather than, say, to her ability to care for the elderly. (IT HAPPENED. SERIOUSLY.) Are you evaluating a female professor? Don't write off her confidence or assertiveness as "bitchyness" when you categorise the same action (done by males) as confidence. (AGAIN. IT HAPPENED.) The list can go on.

3. Listen to females when they speak in meetings. Of course, listen to males too, but studies show that when females are listened to in meetings, their original ideas are all-too-often attributed to males. Listen to individuals when they speak, and give those individuals credit for the ideas they bring forth.

4. Consider publishing / applying to jobs with your initials rather than your full name. This goes for females AND males. While it is mostly females who reap the negative results of gender bias, if only females start using their initials it may not have as strong an affect as if males and females both choose this. For comparison, think of LGBT individuals who, prior to legalisation of marriage, could not use terms like 'spouse' or 'wife/husband' to refer to their significant other. As a result, the term "partner" began to become more prominent. But, and this is important: THE TERM WAS NOT ISOLATED TO LGBT COMMUNITIES. Instead, straight individuals (married or unmarried) also began to also use the term "partner," and a type of solidarity was created. In affect, it acknowledged the limits of stigma-free vocabulary that LGBT individuals had at their disposal and decided to use the same vocabulary. I think we can draw a line of comparison for the use of full names when it comes to publishing and job applications. For better or for worse, recogniseably female names are met with unconscious bias. This affects publications, job hirings, and citations or engagement with scholarship. (And probably more.) A natural way to eliminate the affects of this bias is to remove the indication of gender.

(This fourth one is really really shitty and sad to think of doing, but I view it as a short-term fix for a problem that will take awhile to change.)

And, because I just remembered about this minutes before pressing "publish" ...check out these tips directed toward junior women scholars given by tenured female professors.

Okay, that's it. I'm really curious to hear your thoughts about this. Feel free to comment below or to PM me.

Living in Academia's Ivory Tower and 'Filling the Gap'

A major preoccupation of academics is finding and filling a “gap in the literature.” These “gaps” can be quite elusive and difficult to find but, so we’re told, finding them and filling them is an important contribution to our field/s of study, and to academia in general. Especially as graduate students, we are told to make sure we write about something that hasn’t been written about before, or do something that hasn’t been done before, if we want to make a splash and have ourselves and our work be noticed by the Big Fish in academia.  

And yet—in the same breath—we are cautioned to not do something too wild or too unfamiliar. Afterall, ‘who do we think we are?’ We have to make sure we simultaneously secure our work comfortably in the protective arms of a successful academic’s theories and ideas while saying something new. 

I imagine this balancing act to be something like this:

But, a pretty important question that should be asked is why it matters to follow this model of scholarship. What is worthwhile about it? Of course, we can’t sustain a model of academia in which no one contributes (in the broadest possible sense of the word) anything new to the existing bodies of work, but why is it that so much emphasis has been placed on finding and filling a content gap?

In some fields this makes sense: i.e. in Medicine: “Thus far, people have found cures/ effective treatments for laryngitis, smallpox, and polio, but no one has yet found a cure/effective treatment for tuberculosis; my research seeks to find that.” You can imagine Robert Koch, the German physician and scientist who in 1882 discovered the bacteria that causes tuberculosis, proposing something like this in a thesis proposal or grant application. Alright, it seems legitimate. Good job and finding and filling a content gap, Dr. Koch!

Dr. Robert Koch keeping it cool; yanked from Wikipedia Images

But this same model of academia is slightly less straightforward in other disciplines. I feel I have a right to pick on anthropology of religion because that is my own field. I wrote my master’s thesis on Protestant Charismatic Christian practices of spiritual healing in a Canadian (Ottawa, to be specific) context. It was a small-scale ethnographic study that drew from a tiny sample. In justifying its validity as a research topic, I argued something like this: “there are studies of spiritual healing in non-Western countries, and in non-Christian religions, okay and there’s also one of a Catholic Charismatic Christian community in the USA…but no one has written about the phenomenon in a Canadian, Protestant context! I’ll write about that!”

Gap = found and filled.

…But to what end? And for what point? 

Don’t get me wrong. I think there’s value in studying a variety of topics, even the ones that don’t contribute to the cure of tuberculosis. As a cultural anthropologist, I believe that learning more about the diversity of human thought and behaviour (both past and present) is extremely valuable. And as an (aspiring) advocate and activist, I think it’s important to bring underrepresented and marginalised experiences/stories/voices into broader conversations—to know that not everyone thinks/believes the same things we do, and that even within a religious community like “Canadian Protestants” there’s a lot of diversity of beliefs. Being reminded of these beliefs and learning more about the details of them can, I think, help us to reduce prejudice and hatred for people who believe/think/act differently than we do.  This hope is a significant motivating factor behind my scholarly pursuits.

But, realistically, did my writing an academic dissertation about this accomplish the very thing that motivated me to write it? Let’s see.
□ Learn about the diversity of human thought and behaviour?
Check.
□ Bring underrepresented and marginalised experiences into broader [scholarly] conversations?
Check.
□ Help reduce people’s prejudice and hatred for people who believe/think/act differently.
....I’m personally not so sure about that last one, and here’s why:

Let’s consider my master’s thesis, which I successfully defended in June 2015.

 

Even though I wrote its opening pages in a narrative voice that read like fiction, and even though I tried to keep academic jargon to a minimum throughout it, at ~60,000 words and tonnes of footnotes and references, it isn’t exactly a cake-walk. And, because of the expectations of academic theses, I had to include a full-scale literature review and methods/theory section, both of which can be quite boring to read through for a specialist in your field, let alone someone outside of that.

Although it’s by no means a hard and fast rule, there is a tendency within specialised academic writing to spiral deeper and deeper into a hole of intimidating jargon and confusing ideas, wherein what once started off as interesting and intelligent transforms into a boring beast.

Or, as one of my professors at the University of Ottawa used to say: “you know that story where that guy can turn whatever he wants into gold? So theoretically you could take a big shit and then turn it into gold? Well academics already have the gold, but they somehow have found a way to make everything they touch turn to shit.”

Here’s how I sometimes picture this going.

(Okay, so I’m being a bit facetious and don’t really think this graph is always true, but you get my point.)

I wonder if all the thought and time I put into my thesis topic would have been better served if I had done something else with the material. Something other than an academic dissertation. Because, really, who even read the thing? My supervisor, bless her soul, read my full thesis--and more than once! My two evaluators read it. My graduate director read it and, in a surprising turn of events, the secretary of my faculty read it. It’s on academia.edu and other similar academic sites, and some colleagues have downloaded it and probably read bits and pieces of it. Although I gave a copy of it to all of my research participants, most of them admitted to only skimming the first few pages before deciding to just read the two-page summary that I wrote especially for them. So, other than my adoring parents, I wonder if it has been read by anyone outside of the academy. I would guess not...which feels like a shame, because I think that (at least some of!) the ideas within it have potential to promote positive change. (Also, the federal government funded my studies, which is a whole other thing to consider..!)

I think academics need to focus on finding and filling a different gap. Not simply a content-based gap, but the more general gap between ivory tower thoughts and the world outside of the ivory tower. Some people advocate for leaving academia's Ivory Tower and this blog has some interesting posts on that if you want to check the out! And this blog tries to demystify the Ivory Tower and reclaim the term in a positive sense. 

And yet, academia has arguably retained some pretty smart minds (you can debate me on this if you want); and a significant part of an academic’s job is literally to think, to learn, and to teach. This is an amazing privilege for each individual, and it could be a great contribution to others—both inside and outside of academia. But a lot of this potential is lost if only other academics are affected by (or included in) academic pursuits.

Let me break this down.

Out of the 7.125 billion people in the world, roughly 6.16 million are academics. That’s roughly 0.8% of the world.

Now, out of that 0.8%, how many do you suppose are in ANY of your overlapping fields? *Gulp*. Now, out of that ridiculously small number, how many do you suppose have gotten around to reading your particular work? *Double gulp.*

I estimate that roughly 8 (eight) people read my master’s thesis from cover to cover. (Did I mention there are 7.125 billion people in the world? ....8.) 

I don't know about you, but I don't feel so great. 

Don’t get me wrong. This is NOT a post to make you feel like your work is meaningless and worthless and has no point. Far from it. I really, really do believe that academic inquiry is important and valuable. I couldn’t keep at it otherwise.

But I’m not convinced that our work is having the impact that it could have if the academy broadened its definition of what counts as a “contribution” and what constitutes as “filling a gap.” We need to not just focus on filling and finding a gap in terms of content that has been covered, but we need to find creative and innovative ways to fill the gap that exists between academia and the world outside of the ivory tower. This effort to connect with the world outside of academia should be celebrated as a positive contribution. 

Some academics like Craig Calhoun at LSE are calling academia out on its focus on specialised publications:

It is a great error for universities to prize publications over scholarship, teaching, and really original research. https://t.co/rsdapTs9hX

— Craig Calhoun (@craigjcalhoun) January 1, 2016

Others are trying to re-imagine the dissertation itself:

Sandra den Otter makes the case for reimagining the diss to include publicly engaged scholarship. #FutureHumanities pic.twitter.com/0EjfYatPqX

— Josh Lambier (@JoshuaLambier) May 18, 2016

Other conference-like events are bringing together academics and artists and trying to increase public engagement. 

Excited to hear Dr. Tim Eatman from @ImaginingAmer speak on "Publicly Engaged Scholarship: The Power of Imagining" #foodinsecurity

— K-StateRes&Extension (@KStateResExt) April 4, 2016

In the interest of keeping this post from becoming dissertation-length, I'll cut myself off here. What are your thoughts about this model of academic contributions? Does it gain anything? Lose anything? How do you think publicly-engaged scholarship can be practically achieved? Feel free to comment below or to PM me.